Bleach 1. stars are overrated, so not you

Disclaimer: Bleach is Kubo Tite's work. Borrowing.

**Mote**

- drabble, one-shot, whatchamacallit collection written for the Livejournal community 31days themes / writing prompts, dating from August last year.

Stars are Overated, so Not You

_August 31: Tell me, beloved rarity / tell me, rare love / where are you now?_

Those scintillating lights take eons to get to the where that matters. After all, empty space doesn't care for all those stars, littered all over the place. The where that matters is the where people are, those stupid animals whose jaws drop at anything that tinkles or trickles or twinkles. The humans put stars, or references to them, all over the place, are inspired by them to chug out uncountable second-rate creations: epic poems, fifteen-feet murals, nine-minute songs. Of course, the stars act all mighty and cold and pale, like they don't care at all what people think, because they are absolutely breathtaking and stunning when they want to be and they know it whether or not you admit it. Come to think of it, the stars are whiny little attention-seekers anyway (and who says they don't spend all their time hanging up there boasting to each other? how do _you_ know?) what with all that shining and constellating.

Constellating. What a word.

And what a kick this innocent-looking jar of liquid delivers. Which reminds her...

She leans over and throws up very carefully. Very carefully refers to how she daintily scoops her pretty golden hair away from her greenish face.

Golden? Pooh. The self-satisfied embellishment of wanna-be poets. (One of which she isn't by the way.) Anyone can see her hair is an absolute disaster right now. That anyone doesn't include Kira-kun, of course. Wow, how can such huge a snore come from such thin a frame? (Thin, thin! There is that thin again! ) Now about hair... There's something about hair and sake not getting along well. Hair makes sake brittle. Or something like that.

She blinks owlishly at the little cup of alcohol. Hair over booze? Hair, definitely hair. And she puts the sake back into the jar. (Most of it, anyway.)

So she's vain about her hair----not that it matters. Boobs are more eye-candy-ish. (Not that _that_ matters either.) A tiny waistline is useful, too. And ass. If you got all the numbers jiving together impeccably, the boobs stand out like whoa. Boobs are rather nice. She peered down and poked them. Oh yes, nice. Squishy. Soft. She pushes both aside---or tries to anyway. They do get in the way a little, she mourns, but they can't be that bad. And he shouldn't complain! _He_ doesn't have boobs.

And his eyes are weird, too. Bastard.

Buying boobs is complicated like buying booze. There are all those kinds of cups involved: A, B, C, D, E. Oh, wait. The cup things are where you put in the boobs. You can buy the gartered cup things, but you can't buy boobs from the store.

(And you can't buy those weird eyes, either. Isn't that just unfair? They are intriguing sort of eyes—in a weird way. You can put them in little cups, too, and play with the other street urchins for keeps. Like cat eyes. Right. Sleepy cat eyes.)

He yawns like a cat. Purrs like one. Mysteriously worms its way into your heart and then you wake up one morning and kapoof. No more kitten.

You know, it's the stupid person's fault for trying to keep the cat. Maybe the kitten decides to keep the person, not the other way around. Maybe the little critter doesn't care. People are stupid that way, getting all gooey with every meow.

It's like with the stars again. Stars may be stuck-up idiots, but so are people. They believe things like the future is written in the stars, that sort of dreamy nonsense. Or something about wishing. Or, or... Look, that star is winking at me!

What was that Hitsugaya-taichou said about stars?

Oh yeah, that they don't really twinkle. It's just the sky and all that lofty distance making a fool of us all, playing our little delusions.

You know that, don't you, Gin (where ever you are, you odious thing)? The stars and the heavens. It's just a conspiracy. A joke.

You don't belong in the heavens, Gin, not in that huge immensity that bears down on us all, hulking up there day and night. Sure, you smile like the stars do, all mysterious, and secretive, and annoying when you look at me. But you aren't as petty as they are, never as blatant, never as trite.

Never as... glib.

But then again, what did she really know of the stars?

What did she really know of him?

-aug 16 05; 0010

Index:

1. Stars are overrated, so not you (GinRan drabblish)

2. Breathe (Ichigo, Rukia drabble)

3. Sterility (Hitsugaya on Hinamori)

4. The Adopted (Nemu)

5. The sky is blue (Renji, Byakuya)

6. Resolution (GinRan)

7. Virtues (division 11, alternate universe)

8. Cat who watches (Yoruichi, Urahara Kisuke)

9. Velveteen Lion (Kon, Orihime, parody)

10. Random Babblings (Hitsugaya, Matsumoto, Alternate Universe)

11. Suicide (Sado, drabble)

12. Fugue (RenjixNemu, rated M)

13. Randomness (Ise Nanao, drabble)


	2. breathe

Disclaimer: Bleach is Kubo Tite's work. Borrowing.

Breathe

_September 1: Here we are_

13:57 090105

She would stay here, she said, and the world inside, the one where it used to always rain, held its breath. Still as death, even its winds stilled their blowing, the particles that comprised them—--dreams, musings, and notions—--suspended in midair, motionless. All attention was fixed on the outside.

It was the silence before the proverbial storm. The rain would spatter again on the convoluted gray, languidly beginning as a lonely drizzle.

He wanted her to be able to go home. Of course, that was why he wanted to save her so badly. But there was more, the inner world whispered beneath his consciousness. With her life now her own, he was expiated of some guilt over his mother's passing. It was like that, wasn't it? He owed her more than ever. Giving back her life included giving back her home. And well, hadn't they all been assuming that her home was with them? Because to them she was part of home?

The moment passed on. Whatever was supposed to happen at that instance, that fragment of indivisible time, had already happened. And whatever had not...

There would be another time, another place. Then, there they would be.

The sunshine held, and the world breathed again

.14:11


	3. sterility

Disclaimer: Bleach is Kubo Tite's work. Borrowing.

Sterility

_September 15 / Your eyes closed_

12:15 091505

The room was small, painfully quadrangular. With white walls, white sheets, and white linoleum, it looked sanitary to the point of offensiveness—yes, he was a slob as a kid, so what? The smell of disinfectant wafted from elsewhere, further accentuating the aseptic feel of the hospital. It all seemed so sterile, so unanimated.

So dead.

There were flowers, of course, and other little trinkets to soften the severity of standard-issue furnishing. Division Four, despite the disproportionately small budget and respect given to them, had housekeeping responsibilities on top of their healthcare ones. They were good in making things homey and warm. (He secretly thought Unohana motherly, he had to admit.) This room, however, suffered from its sole occupant. Its white walls remained static and cold, because there was no human energy to bring colors and voices and feelings.

She wasn't like a doll, not with its airbrushed cheeks on a porcelain face. There were circles under her eyes, the color of a banana you stuck in your pocket early that morning when you peel it in the afternoon, mottled and mushed. Her skin practically blended with the environment. A breathing cadaver then.

Of course, she was hardly even breathing. The machines kept her suspended in life, but no, they didn't make her eyes open. There weren't instructions for that in their operating manual.

He was standing there now, taking his leave, but did that prove his cling to life was more tenacious than hers? She was supposed to be more stubborn than him, more optimistic, more earnest. But she was also failed by the two—three, counting him—people she trusted most, and maybe that sort of thing tended to loosen your grip on things. At least, two of those people were definitely sorry. Of course, that didn't make a difference, because the unapologetic one was the one who mattered most to her, the one that broke her.

"Taichou." A voice, hushed as people usually assume in places like hospitals and mortuaries, came from the doorway. "We're leaving."

Hitsugaya turned and acknowledged his vice-captain—no, he wasn't the only one teeming with questions, twisting with unsaid things, proud and strong and pained. "We'll meet the others at the gateway," he said, an idiotic statement, probably, to indicate he was in charge. He had his childish moments. So what?

He glanced a last time at his childhood friend as he exited out the sterile room.

Her eyes were still closed.

September 15, 2005 (23:58)


	4. the adopted

Disclaimer: Bleach is Kubo Tite's work. Borrowing.

The adopted

_September 2: Loneliness and desire_

13:53

There was a certain falseness in her existence. With each breath she took, she thought of the reasons why she was a hollowed being, why the exchange between oxygen and carbon dioxide was just that and not process borne of a mystical touch of some supernatural being sustaining inexplicable life. Oh, but she would have loved to believe that... only that her very life, her every cell, was proof against it. She was not created by some god, nor birthed by a woman of her own species. She was created by her master. She was a fabrication, a brilliant invention, a soul that was not.

Aizen Souchirou had dared to claim such an exalted position: godhood. Nemu could not bring herself to believe in him either—would not—and, if given the chance, would have fought to rid the heavens of him. But to that war he started against Soul Society, against the human world, she had been deemed in advance a mere spectator. Whatever the outcome, she and her master would adapt and survive. Mayuri-sama would profit. Mayuri-sama would know and would learn.

Ah, but why was she dwelling on such unpleasant matters?

Night was for dreaming, and under the moon, she could coax out the emotions her brain produced through out the day, could examine them under the cold white light and wonder at their seeming realness to her: how sorrow wrenched her heart from its great vessels and the flimsy sac that succored it, how her anger seared her blood so hotly that they budded from the pores of her skin, how loneliness dissolved her entire body, the remains poured down some incorporeal sink to coagulate with the chemical wastes coating the drain pipes, crawling to the sewers, and seeping to its final resting place in the undiscriminating earth. She dreamed that they were real, those feelings, and that the pockmarked silver face that smiled with such gentleness from above was her mother.

Nemu took a last long gaze up the sky. She looked hard enough, long enough, and for a brief moment it give her the illusion of flight, of belonging, and of realness. The glinting stars filled her with happiness----never mind that she was synthetic as long as she could take in happiness and hold it in till her soul brimmed---- and it would have to last her till tomorrow night, during the same three minutes that took her to walk from the laboratory to the twelfth division quarters.

14:33


	5. the sky is blue

Disclaimer: Bleach is Kubo Tite's work. Borrowing.

The sky is blue

_September 27 / Chasing the metaphysical express_

092705 0825

It was early morning and already shinigami were scrambling about in the 6th division, striving to reach the pace they were expected to put out work. After slacking off for a few days, it was startlingly hard to get back to the old rhythm. Byakuya-sama was back, with capitals 'S,' 'A,''M,' and 'A.'

Renji watched his subordinates scurry about, not at all planning to lift a single finger. They weren't very good at subtlety, but they had their good side. Their postures were a little stiff, as if they have trouble moving their bowels, but at least they weren't running around screaming their heads off in panic.

Actually, Kuchiki-taichou was relatively laid back ever since he got back to work. Renji returned to those memories cautiously. It wasn't easy to see the man you've treated as the ultimate graduation, the unreachable goal that had to be met at all costs, be injured and weakened. Byakuya was human somewhere inside that icy exterior of his, so shockingly very human in his fragility. And to realize that about a man so powerful, so intractable, so invincible... required such a shift in perspective.

Renji bent over and casually picked up the 5th seat shinigami of his division by the scruff and kicked him out the office unceremoniously.

"Private meeting," he said. "See ya." And he shut the door at the gibbering man's face.

Renji did things like that once in a while. The fifth seater was being ridiculous, anyway. Taichou wasn't going to eat people for late paper work. He might unwittingly suck your soul dry with his mere presence, but eating subordinates alive tended to make people unpopular—even Kuchikis.

"I'm ready to go, taichou," Renji respectfully announced as he knocked and poked his head into the office.

He entered when the serious-faced man gestured for him to come.

"That is an... unorthodox mode of dress," Byakuya remarked.

"Yeah?" Renji picked at his white polo shirt. "Costume, taichou. We're posing as humans."

"Yes."

"It's Ichigo's school uniform."

"That makes sense. No wonder the boy is always restless."

Renji didn't follow that.

"Such restrictive clothing would harry the most placid bovine."

"Oh. Yeah, I get what you mean."

They lapsed to silence.

"Ah, taichou? Did you have anything in particular to say?"

"No."

"Oh, okay. Are you sure, taichou? No last minute instructions? Not even a thousand-year-old family saying?" Renji might be pushing his luck just a bit too much, but he was a little irritated. "Taichou, you called me here. Are you sure you don't have anything important to tell me?"

Byakuya nodded solemnly. "The sky is blue outside."

"..."

The man rose then, tying his soul cutter to his belt with measured, regal movements.

"...That's it?"

"Punctuality," the captain warned as he glided past the redhead and out the room. "Don't embarrass the 6th division, fukutaichou."

"Wait," Renji called after him. "I don't get it. I mean, I get it but so what? The sky is blue."

"Yes, it is," the quiet voice came floating to him from the end of the hall. "Very perceptive of you."

Renji stared at his captain's disappearing back for a few moments, then finally he shrugged and tugged at the black slacks that was in place of the much more comfortable hakama.

The sky was blue. Well, he couldn't complain about that.

09:25 092705


	6. resolution

Disclaimer: Bleach is Kubo Tite's work. Borrowing.

Resolution

_September 30: Exeunt omnes_

Bleach / Ichimaru Gin / drabble / GinRan

092705 14:15

A pillar of death-rendering light, erupting from the earth, emblazoned the multitude of stunned faces into a weirdly rendered, ghost-still memory in his head. The image seared in his brain and the story that, having previously risen in the traditional path of crescendo, took on Shunpou-speed the past few days and rhapsodized to climax with a sensory overloading twang. The moment of exhilarating high was sustained in that few shocked seconds of instantaneous life-preserving reactions, an intoxicating discordant chord that held over the stupendous tableau there were locked in.

A note cracked. It was over.

The characters were riven apart as the Menos tore open the sky in their pre-arranged, well-executed grand entrance. (Ah, much love to the director, yes.) The main player/star actor/bohemian director/twisted writer was ascending to heaven with well-deserved pomp and a bad-ass OST. Everything else was falling into denouement.

Regret was a bitter libation to celebrate with. Gin, laidback bearing withstanding, threw the proverbial drink down his gullet, and smiled his usual smile of jolly sinister. It was disappointing when chapters and volumes ended when they had to, but the story always resumed another day. Nonetheless, he stole a split second to record the sensation of her slim, pincer-strong hand closed around his wrist, the sheen of the blade floating inches from his jugular, the softness of her pressed against his decidedly bony back.

He pulled his arm away easily, and told her he would have loved to stay ensnared but couldn't. And perhaps, his smile was not the usual smile, because she looked back at him in shock and a definite destabilization somewhere in her system that blunted her enthusiasm in chasing after him.

Free from her clutches, Ichimaru Gin abandoned the set without a backward glance.

----

A foot note: Gin didn't lie entirely. (He had never lied outright, really. The mixture of truth and falsehood was always the potent sustenance of plot movement.) He didn't really want to stay, even if he could, only that--if she had allowed it--he would have taken her with him as he exited the stage because, as he said, it really wasn't so bad being in her clutches.

end

14:36 092705


	7. virtues

Disclaimer: Bleach is Kubo Tite's work. Borrowing.

Virtues

_October 3: When angels speak of love (Alternate Universe)_

100405 14:05

The archangels were in the middle of their weekly rounds, ensuring that the human world was all in order. Currently, they were in the eleventh jurisdiction, rejoicing out souls gained and mourning for souls lost. The Archangel Zaraki, as he was determinedly outlining his plan to lay siege on Hell and regain his lost souls, was interrupted by a strange noise.

"IYAAAAAAAAH!"

Moments later, the speaker zoomed pas the group, wings all awry and halo falling of a perfectly round head shining like the malevolent Lightbringer himself.

"Baldie, baldie! Come here! Give the cherubim their hugs. You know they want it. Calm them down, baldie! Hey, that's an order. Come back!"

"Hug them yourself!"

"But I want you!"

"Iyaaaaaah!"

There was a profound silence at their wake.

"The eleventh jurisdiction prides itself for its dedication to the Four virtues."

The archangels nodded in solemn approval, then moved on. The archangel Kurotsachi was speaking now. Meanwhile, the one who spoke a while ago, an angel of a lower order named Yumichika, sighed in relief.

He was saved.

"Yu. Mi. Chi. Ka!"

Or not. Yumichika took off at a dead run, the angel Yachiru in hot pursuit.

14:20


	8. cat who watches

Disclaimer: Bleach is Kubo Tite's work. Borrowing.

Cat Who Watches

_October 15 / Night: A Nightmare_ (Alternate Universe)

21:45

The black cat prowled the alleys, as it had always been written in popular fiction it was wont to, but nowadays it need not only be wary of ferocious guard dogs or speeding death-bringers. Now, shadows had ways of swallowing living things whole, any corner with as much as a blemish of a shadow capable of breeding the monstrous, the grotesque, and the insidious.

Towering buildings, long abandoned and crumbling, hid the worn-faced moon. The dredges of humanity subsisted, naturally, looting through the remains of the metropolis. And the other creatures tolerated them, for their husks were as distasteful as their intentions.

It was through this maze of ghost-infested infrastructures the lumbering creature winged its way. With its sallow, saucer-sized eyes, it spotted the cat and it swooped with a piercing shriek, claws ready to rend flesh, to add another soul to the multitude that comprised the Hollow. The feline yowled with twice as loud a volume, the scratching noise impossibly issuing forth from its sleek frame. Nonetheless, the antediluvian thing trembled and fled, flailing in the skies in its scramble to leave the vicinity.

Satisfied, the cat loped off into the darkness. Certain that it was alone, she returned to the lair she protected. Inside, her human charges slept on. Also with them were the renegade vanguards of the heavens, those who have fallen when the rebellion tore creation asunder. The non-human needed no sleep, but the illusion of rest certainly benefitted them.

The cat would have to awaken them soon. She was sorry to have to do this, but she carefully set aside the misplaced pity as she delicately washed her fur with her tongue. Besides, she had listened to them whimper through their bad dreams long enough.

"Feeling motherly, aren't we?" spoke the man in the hat.

"It happens," the cat replied.

It was almost morning. Of course, morning lasted merely a half an hour. The sun only peered at the world with its burnished forehead. And then it sank back down to the bowels of the earth. Every since Aizen's descent to the above-world, the deposed lord of the skies shunned its former home.

The earth continued to die.

"Wake them," the cat said. "My motherliness ends at listening to them all whine for five minutes more."

Her partner nodded. "You'll still hear them. And don't you always give in? "

"Bah."

The cat went off once more into the endless night.

22:58


	9. velveteen lion

Disclaimer: Bleach is Kubo Tite's work. Borrowing.

The Velveteen Lion

_October 4 / Why do you sleep with girls?_ AU parody

21:52 100405

When Orihime was a little girl, her brother gifted her with a stuffed toy, a velveteen lion. It was an adorable thing with tight stuffing made of the softest down and mane made of bits of silken yarn. She named him Kon.

After her brother's death, Kon became her constant companion, a sort of security blanket. They went to bed together, sat together, studied together... Sometimes, she even brought him along when she took a bath, sitting him at the sink while she lazed around in the bath tub. Yes, Kon had seen her grow from a little girl to a big-bo—um, to a big girl.

Now, growing, that was exactly Kon's problem. When humans grow, they're automatically repaired and renewed. Not Kon. Even though Orihime was a stellar sewer, she couldn't save the poor stuffed lion from earning some signs of aging. Kon didn't mind a few wrinkles, as long as he was with his beloved Orihime.

Orihime was a sweet, helpful girl. She often went to the town clinic to help Kurosaki-sensei with his patients. Kon came along sometimes. Yuzu, one of the doctor's daughter, was sure to entertain him while Orihime helped Karin. Kon didn't like Ichigo, however. The orange-haired boy looked at Kon suspiciously too often. Once he grabbed Kon from Yuzu's grasp, scolding his sister from bringing a toy to the restroom with her.

One day, a little girl came. She was very sick. Orihime was so sorry for the lonely little girl, and she gave Kon to her for comfort, leaving him at the clinic overnight..

Actually, the girl wasn't so little and Kon had a very, very good night then.

It was revealed, however, that the girl had a very serious disease. Because of this, Kon would have to be disposed, Ichigo had seriously said.

Orihime was heartbroken, but of course she believed that bastard Ichigo. Kon was soon in a black garbage bag, along with other totally disgusting gunk, ready to be cremated.

And then... something miraculous happened.

The good fairy Unohona came, dressed in her shimmery fairy dress spun from light and kindness. She was gorgeous and kind and magical as she cradled Kon from bowels of the trash bag. Kon wondered whether she'd be wearing a D or a DD cup, were she wearing a brassiere. He decided he didn't really care, since she was hugging him so tenderly, giving him much needed comfort.

"I was waiting for you, neechan," he wept.

"Oh, dear, dear, Kon," she said. "I am sorry that this has come to past."

"I'm not. Well, not totally. I wouldn't get see you otherwise."

"Such a flatterer." And yet the fairy simpered. "Orihime shall sorely miss you."

"And I will miss her!"

"There, there." Unohona patted him. "Oops, you're bleeding, dear."

"Ahahaha... That's from the trash can. There were some bloody bandages."

"Oh, I see. Well, dear, I think I shall do now what I came here for. I will give you a gift as a reward for your love and devotion to Orhime. I shall turn you into a real lion."

"NOOOO!"

Unohona was taken aback by the doll's violent reaction. "Why, Kon. I thought you wished for this."

"Well, I used to, but— No. Totally out of the question."

Unohona paused. "I can turn you into a real boy, if that's what you want."

Kon pondered over this long and hard. Then he shook his head. "Nah," he said. "I want you to do something else for me."

"What would that be, dearest?"

"I want you to disinfect me. I want Orihime-nee to take me back."

"But Kon, dear," she said gently. "Even if Orihime takes you back, at some point, she will grow up."

"I know. Isn't it great?"

"But she might give you up, donate you, or give you to another little girl."

"Ah, but that's what I'm hear for, oh motherly fairy. I am here to give comfort to little girls as they sleep."

Unohona nodded gravely. "Very well." And she disappeared.

Meanwhile, Orihime was walking back home, still crying. Because her eyes were too teary to see, she tripped and landed on her chest. It hurt considerably so she cried some more.

Then she noticed the thing she tripped on. It was a bottle. Bleach.

So that's how Kon ended up back in Orihime's room, shaved of his mane. He was now a polar bear.

A very happy polar bear.

1042 101905


	10. random babblings

Disclaimer: Bleach is Kubo Tite's work. Borrowing.

Random Babblings

_October 19 / Birds in your garden_ Alternate Universe

The courtyard was tattered by the angular shadows of the artistically trimmed cypresses. Motionless and deserted, it fell to waiting, a setting of a nightmare waiting to play out—a romantic tale's plausible, too. Of course, often times the romantic turns tragic, and the beginnings of a bad dream always start like a pleasant one. But they were rushed and she didn't get to savor the sight of the emperor's lawns, only glimpses of what must have been breathtaking beauty under sunlight.

There was babbling, like a bunch of women exchanging gossips. She looked to her side and saw it was just a fountain; she couldn't decipher what was represented by the exquisitely carved marble, devoured by the darkness, but she found its babbling obtrusive and couldn't help frowning upon its flippancy in light of the empire's dire situation.

The Prince of the northernmost city-state stopped in his tracks.

"What is it?" she asked. "Toushirou-sama?"

"That bird," he said. "A nightingale."

Matsumoto cocked her head to one side, straining to hear past the continuous gurgling of water. "It is, sire."

"The same one this morning, singing outside her window."

"Possibly, sire. Do you want me to catch it? I've been itching to clasp onto things by their necks for days, ever since the former lord of the city-state of Lotus escaped my clutches. One of my character defects, you know."

Hitsugaya Toushirou said nothing. This was easier for him, see. His usual expression was serious, his usual answers cool and unaffected—being taciturn was his way of life. On the other hand, her normal mood was mischievous and light. Much, much harder for her to stay in character. Too much, she felt, but she tried her best.

"I am eager to bestow reprisal on those who have disturbed our empire, my lord. My breasts speak to me so passionately. Look, how they quiver with ire!"

The prince did not look, but neither did he deliver the suave retort he usually would have. "Control yourself, Matsumoto." His warning was serious. "We might not even talk about the three traitors in this council."

"Impossible, sire; they are the enemies. We counsel for war." She paused. "And the nightingale?"

He took a moment to answer. "Leave it be."

"We can't cage its beauty," she agreed sadly. "Just because beauty in our lives have flown away."

He glowered at her in irritation. "If you're going to be in that mood all evening..."

Matsumoto's eyes widened in mock guilt. "Forgive me. I have been carried away by the tragic air of my lord's conversation."

"Oh, shut up. You made the bird fly away."

Matsumoto Rangiku smiled then, bowed slightly in respect of his strength. "Thank you, sire."

"Matsumoto..." The prince shook his head, sighing in irritation at being cornered with his emotions. "Stop dawdling or we'll get late."

"My ass is weighing me down, I'm afraid," she observed mournfully, poking her derriere experimentally.

"I don't really care, dammit. Your ass can do whatever it damn pleases."

They left the fountain giggle over its little private jokes and the nightingale elsewhere, singing its little heart out.

1714


	11. suicide

Disclaimer: Bleach is Kubo Tite's work. Borrowing.

Suicide

_February 21: A thousand li_

A thousand ri a day was a physical impossibility the samurai of the fables transcended in the liberation of soul afforded by death. If caught in the same predicament, Sado could have demolished the gaol, without having to go through such extreme means, and as he had already traveled between worlds, what was a thousand ri, even on foot?

But what needed doing now was not something that can be accomplished simply by slitting ones belly. In an ironic imitation of the ritual of seppuku, Sado knelt. What he expected from his chosen second, Urahara Kisuke, was a little more elaborate than a clean decapitation, however. Suicide, as they say, was largely painless, and in this case useless.

Solid, silent, and strong, Sado began his thousand ri trek by consorting with dust.

- 22:25 022106


	12. fugue rated M

Disclaimer: Bleach is Kubo Tite's work. Borrowing.

Fugue

_April 19 / strangers in the dark_

It is amidst choking vines and putrefying leaves, golden-eyed predators and fat fingers of blood-lusting leeches; their secret tryst is deep in the jungle. It is the call of the wild, fodder to their monsters, easily attributable to the layered complexity of the mind and its warring corners, to its ids and egos and superegos, to its million facets.

It is in the dark, explanations unnecessary. He is wild, sleek with brook water and sweat, browned by the now gone sun and etched with mystic symbols, a ripped, fanged devil. She is the misplaced, riven by sheer passion, picturesque and dramatic with her torn clothes, formerly civilized, formerly made. They are blood and bile, ire and bitterness. They dance to the beat of hell's drums—

_Boom. Ka-boom. Boom. Ka-boom._

—and writhe with the rhythm of the pulsating earth.

_Dig deeper and harder, Deeper and harder, deeper and harder, deeperandharder__ཀ_

It is when the sky cracks open and their sinuous entwining bodies are dappled by the silvers of the canopy-sieved moon and pain-painted scars, are illuminated for the glib eyes of voyeuristic gods. Their joining is fierce and raw and sublimely intoxicating, a stolen few moments of primal abandon where only flesh matters and the thinking brain is battered black by pinpoints of sensations cresting to coalesce into a maddening deluge of pleasure,

a fury,

Dynamite.

It is done. He stumbles to his feet and walks away, half-asleep and sated, leaving behind telltale proof of solitary sin. She stays to luxuriate atop the cold hardness of the tiled laboratory, to savor the rare throes of being herself and for herself, to watch in half bemusement as the wicked-looking runes on the incubus's body fade from her vision.

Then:

(He is Renji again.)

(She is Nemu again.)

They forget.

It is bliss.

1600


	13. randomness

Disclaimer: Bleach is Kubo Tite's work. Borrowing.

randomness

_June 4 / the book of questions_

1801 060206

For Nanao's view of the world remained rational and practical while the world refused to be so, she was often left with questions that remained wanting of answers. She wrote them down diligently and secretly, in hopes the severe black and white presentation might facilitate the focusing of her analytic brain on solutions. Of course, the said analytic brain was often futile against the philosophical inquiries it conjured everyday. And yes, she was irritated by the profligacy of her irrational notions. She had deemed her self better than that and figured it must be the result of a certain someone's unsavory influence.

Most of those aforesaid notions were his, after all. But it was she who got stuck with them, till she should could no longer do her work and instead pondered upon the unanswerable.

Why is the sky blue, he would say offhand.

It has something to do with the wavelength of light absorbed by the substances that makes up the sky, she replied, perfectly reasonable. Whatever's reflected is what we see.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

To get to the other side, she said dryly, now losing her patience. She was absolutely serious, however, and he had laughed his head off, lauding her gracious lack of arrogance and superiority of the simpler folk's amusements, her game appreciation of his lame-ass jokes.

There _was_ one query she formulated herself. It was regarding her dear captain's sanity. And day after day, she logged her answer as thus: indeterminable.

1808 060206


End file.

Bleach, Drama